Current Work
The Agapic Project (TAP) has the very general aim of bringing together people who seek to practice agape, unconditional and universal love, in all areas of their lives.
In order to narrow our focus and create greater impact, our active projects fall under three main areas: agape ethics, extending concern, and relationships. Within these areas, members are able to work on issues they are particularly passionate about and have relevant skills for. This means the nature of our work in TAP is flexible, depending on the members involved.
Currently, we are working on three projects within our areas of focus; we have undertaken more specific actions for each of them, such as working on a children's book, research, producing content to raise awareness, et cetera.
Credit: Yuna Fauveau
Callum, Emma, Gabrielle, Jess, Lucas, Lynn, Maurgane, Victoria, and Zach have all been drafting stories or helping with the children's book.
Extending Concern: Animal Rights & Welfare
March 2021–ongoing
The Non-Human Welfare project aims at improving animals’ living conditions through spreading awareness about their current state and ways to increase their wellbeing. So far, we have mainly worked on two ideas.
The first is a document giving guidelines for communication in cases of ethical disagreement regarding veganism. The document has been written and proofread at length, and served as the basis for a series of posts on its topic.
The second is a children’s book to promote animal welfare, consisting of a compilation of true stories about vegans, animal activists, animals who built friendships with humans, etc. We are currently working on more stories and are searching for illustrators for each of them.
In the future, we also hope to look into improving animal rights as well as launch new projects to extend concern for minority groups.
—Gabrielle
For more information, check out our animal welfare children's book project.
Relationships and Wellbeing
September 2023–ongoing
Starting from the fact that a lot of existing harm comes from unloving relationships and toxic communication, the Relationships and Wellbeing project aims to improve relationships by imparting valuable skills, and promoting agapic behavior towards others.
In order to do this, every week we organise an online reading group of the book ‘Non-violent Communication: A Language of Life’ by Marshall Rosenberg as well as a practice session, which we think can help raise awareness of the significance of nurturing relationships and well-being, and enable people a non-violent way to communicate between each other.
We also hold a weekly reading group on 'Beyond Beliefs: A Guide to Improving Relationships and Communication for Vegans, Vegetarians, and Meat Eaters' by Melanie Joy.
Moreover, we developed a 2-page 'cheat sheet' that helps individuals with non-violent communication (NVC) practice, as well as an 8-page summary to help introduce people to NVC.
—Yuelin
Zach, Callum, and Lucas are currently involved in this project, led by Yuelin. Jess, Theo, Lucas, Gabrielle, Wanmei, and Bence were all involved last year.
Nadine researched and presented William Desmond’s conception of agape. Gaëlle is researching and working on presenting conceptions of agape in French literature. Jess is looking into psychology research on agape. Theo is exploring secular Buddhist roots of agape and tools for its practice. Zach is researching and working on presentations about agape and radical democracy, agape and anarchism, agape and (civil) disobedience/methods for changing society, agape and linguistic justice, agape and feminism-gender, and agape and eros. And in August 2025, Zach starts a PhD on an agapic democracy for a socio-ecological transition, in which they explore the implications of agape ethics for justice and ultimately political institutions (direct democracy) and practice (mutual aid and prefigurative direct action).
Agape Ethics
March 2024–ongoing
The agape ethics research project focuses on the issues deemed most crucial and/or urgent for The Agapic Project from the perspective of agape. That is, what will be most important for improving the well-being, autonomy, and relationships of all. We have identified the following priorities:
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developing agape theory, particularly how to reconcile well-being, autonomy, and relationships.
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finding how best to move people to agape, through a better interdisciplinary understanding of what other rationalities and emotions direct people’s decisions and actions, and of how to respond to these competing rationalities and emotions.
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better identifying what agapic institutions look like and how to build towards them, what policies best embody agape, how to implement them, etc.
—Zach
Learn more about agape through our reading group.